s 

University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


THE  QUESTION  BEFORE  THE  PEOPLE. 

What  is  the  Real  Issue  in  the  Presidential  Campaign  ? 


A   SPEECH    BY 


HENRY    QEORGOS, 

BEFORE  THE   TILDEN   AND  HENDRICKS    CENTRAL   CLUB,   AT   DASHAWAY   HALL,    SAN 
FRANCISCO,  ON  THE  EVENING  OF  AUGUST  15iH,  1876. 


The  Meeting  being  called  to  order,  the  Hon.  THOMAS  P.  RYAN,  President  of  the 
Club,  came  forward  and  introduced  Mr.  HENRY  GEORGE,  who  spoke  as  follows: 

FELLOW-CITIZENS  :  We  are  coming  to  another  Presidential  election  under  circum 
stances  which  ought  to  give  a  fresh  impulse  to  patriotic  feeling.  "We  have  just  en 
tered  upon  a  new  century  of  the  Republic — the  Republic  one  and  indivisible.  Over 
the  whole  vast  territory  held  by  over  forty-five  millions  of  people  the  same  flag  has 
been  given  to  the  breeze,  the  same  anniversaries  kept,  the  same  traditions  recalled. 
The  thrill  of  Lexington,  the  joy  of  Bunker  Hill,  the  defiant  thunder  of  Moultrie 
have  again  swept  through  the  land,  and  out  again  with  all  the  added  meaning  of  a 
century  has  rung  the  announcement  of  our  independence.  With  eyes  so  fixed 
on  the  old  beacons;  with  faces  so  turned  towards  the  august  shapes  that  loom  through 
the  mists  of  a  hundred  years,  cold  must  be  the  heart  that  has  not  felt  the  prejudices 
of  section  and  the  surviving  animosities  of  civil  strife  melting  in  the  glow  of  a  pa 
triotism  that  knows  but  one  common  country. 

Can  we  not,  should  we  not,  put  away  from  us  in  this  Centennial  year  all  the 
rancor  of  party  feeling?  Can  we  not,  should  we  not,  make  this  Presidential  elec 
tion  in  fact,  what  it  is  in  theory,  a  great  council  of  the  nation,  to  which  we  come  not 
as  the  adherents  of  rival  factions,  but  in  the  temper*  of  men  with  mutual  bonds  and 
common  interests,  counciling  with  each  other  as  to  what  is  best  for  all?  For 
this  election  means  much  more  than  the  choice  of  an  Executive.  We  have  not 
simply  to  say  what  man  shall  govern,  but  what  ideas  shall  govern;  not  merely  who 
shall  take  the  helm,  but  in  what  direction  the  Ship  of  State  shall  be  steered. 

Remembering  this,  the  political  contest  is  lifted  above  the  low  plain  of  denuncia 
tion  anjl  demagoguism.  and  becomes  not  a  contest  for  spoils  in  which  the  people  are 
simply  permitted  to  choose  which  gang  shall  plunder  them;  but  a  solemn  momentous 
inquiry,  demanding  from  each  voter  a  conscientious  judgment. 

Now,  however  much  we  may  differ  on  minor  questions  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
great  body  of  the  American  people  must  find  common  ground  on  one  thing — the 
desire  to  restrain  political  corruption  and  to  reduce  the  public  burdens.  It  is  to 
this  class  that  I  wish  to  address  myself. 

If  one  party  avowed  itself  in  favor  of  reform  and  the  other  ^party  avowedly 
opposed  it,  the  citizen  who  conscientiously  wished  to  cast  his  vote  for  reform  would 
be  in  no  perplexity.  But  as  is  always  the  case,  both  parties  ask  the  suffrage  of  the 
voter  with  the  name  of  reform  upon  their  lips.  'Which  shall  we  believe? 

Why  accept  the  declarations  of  either?  You  may  as  well  set  it  down  as  an 
axiom  that  reform,  simply  as  reform  and  purely  for  the  sake  of  reform,  you  will 
never  get  from  any  party.  Whenever  any  set  of  politicians  start  a  party  which  has 
no  other  avowed  object  than  that  of  reform,  you  may  safely  put  them  down  as 


[2] 

demagogues;  for  if  they  are  not,  be  sure  that  the  moment  the  party  has  any  show 
of  success,  the  demagogues  will  be  found  leading  it  with  louder  bawls  for  reform 
than  anybody  else. 

The  only  philosophical  way  to  look  for  reform  is  to  apply  to  politics  the  same 
common  sense  method  you  would  apply  to  any  affair  of  every  day  life.  If  there 
is  any  difference  at  all  between  our  parties,  they  must  represent  different  policies 
of  government.  If  the  domain  of  law  extend,  as  it  surely  does,  to  the  mental 
and  moral  as  well  as  to  the  physical  universe,  every  evil  of  which  we  are  conscious 
must  have  its  antecedent  cause.  Ascertain  what  the  policies  represented  by  these 
parties  are,  trace  back  to  their  causes  the  evils  you  would  have  reformed,  and  then 
seeing  how  the  policy  of  each  party  would  affect  the  causes  of  these  evils,  you  can 
tell  which  party  is  most  likely  to  give  reform,  as  certainly  as  you  could  tell  whether 
irrigation  or  drainage  would  be  best  for  a  piece  of  land  which  you  knew  was  too 
wet  or  too  dry. 

Parties  and  Party  Principles. 

In  endeavoring  to  fix  with  certainty  what  these  parties  of  ours  mean — that  is  to 
say,  what  diverse  policies  of  government  they  represent,  let  me  ask  your  attention  if 
I  take  a  somewhat  wide  range.  Simple  as  the  question  may  seem,  there  are  many 
Democrats  who  do  not  appear  to  have  the  slightest  idea  of  what  Democracy  really  is, 
while  there  are  many,  very  many  Republicans  who  know  as  much  for  what  they  are 
voting  as  the  firemen  in  the  hold  of  a  steamer  know  which  way  the  vessel  is  going. 
Party  names  are  frequently  misleading;  party  platforms  are  proverbially  framed  to 
catch  votes,  and  when  we  remember  that  a  party  line  simply  divides  by  two  all  the 
various  opinions  of  a  great  community,  we  must  expect  to  find  on  each  side  of  it  all 
sorts  of  diversities  and  divergences.  In  addition  to  this  we  are  just  now  in  a 
peculiar  position.  A  question  which  for  a  whole  generation  has  thrust  itself  with 
more  and  more  violence  into  our  politics,  until  it  culminated  in  an  appeal  to  actual 
force,  has  been  settled.  The  old  issues  have  gone,  and  party  lines  have  shifted,  while 
many  people  seem  as  yet  unware  of  it. 

But,  however  we  may  be  perplexed,  if  we  take  individual  opinions  or  isolated 
acts,  as  to  what  is  the  real  difference  between  the  parties,  or  whether  they  differ  from 
each  other  at  all,  if  we  extend  our  survey  to  a  view  of  them  as  wholes,  we  shall  be 
able,  clearly  enough,  to  discern  their  distinctive  features.  For  great  parties  do 
not  exist  by  accident.  They  can  not  be  gotten  up  to  order,  as  our  friends  of  the  late 
Independent  party  have  found  out.  They  must  represent  more  than  the  desire  of 
certain  individuals  for  power,  or  they  could  not  cohere.  They  must  have  certain 
principles  on  which,  in  spite  of  differences  of  opinion  on  other  matters,  the  mem 
bers  generally  agree,  and  on  which  they  generally  differ  from  the  other  party — in 
short,  they  must  have  a  reason  for  existence,  or  they  would  not  exist. 

Of  course,  when  I  speak  of  the  principles  of  a  party,  I  mean  its  distinctive  principles — 
that  in  which  it  differs  f  rom  its'adversary ,  not  that  in  which  it  agrees — for  it  is  only  as  to 
these  differences  that  parties  exist.  It  is  important  to  notice  this,  for  it  is  a  favorite 
device  of  party  managers  to  proclaim  themselves  champions  of  principles  upon 
which  the  people  are  substantially  agreed.  Thus,  in  England,  long  after  the  strife  between 
Catholic  and  Protestant  had  ceased,  you  would  find  a  party  proclaiming  itself  the 
peculiar  champion  of  the  Protestant  succession,  when  no  one  dreamed  of  attacking 
the  Protestant  succession;  thus  in  this  country  you  will  find  a  party  proclaiming 
that  its  peculiar  mission  is  to  preserve  the  Union,  when  there  does  not  exist  a  sane 
man  in  all  the  land  who  has  the  slightest  idea  of  attempting  to  break  up  the  Union. 

These  feigned  issues  or  false  issues,  are  the  chosen  field  of  the  demagogue,  who 
always  strives  to  hide  the  distinctive  features  of  his  party  under  features  which  are 
not  distinctive,  but  generally  popular.  They  are  the  great  source  of  confusion  and 
delusion  to  siiperficial  observers,  who  frequently  run  away  with  the  idea  that  a  ques 
tion  must  be  in  issue  because  there  is  so  much  fuss  made  about  it,  or  else  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  real  difference  between  parties  after  all. 

But,  if  we  look  closely,  we  will  always  find  that  there  is  an  essential  difference 
between  parties.  The  unthinking  may  be  deluded  into  voting  upon  dead  issues  or 
false  issues;  but  the  real  struggle  of  parties  is  always  over  the  live  issue  made  by  the 
application  of  their  distinctive  principles  to  the  affairs  of  the  time. 

Now,  since  the  slavery  question  is  settled  and  out  of  our  politics,  what  are 
the  questions  of  the  time?  Evidently,  the  general  questions  of  the  conduct  of  gov 
ernment,  and  the  real  differences  between  parties  must  be  as  to  these. 


[3] 

The  Two  Great  Parties  of  every  Country. 

Now,  wherever  we  look,  in  every  country,  in  every  time,  which  shows  the  first 
stir  of  political  life,  \ve  see  two  great  parties,  which  answer  to  the  sweeping  general 
ization  that  has  divided  all  mankind  politically  into  adherents  of  the  rival  Houses  of 
Have  and  Warit — that  is  to  say,  the  party  of  moneyed  interests  and  the  party  of  the 
poorer  classes;  the  parties  of  capital  and  of  labor;  of  aristocracy  and  democracy;  of 
conservatism  and  progress;  the  party  which  attaches  most  importance  to  the  strength 
of  the  government  and  that  which  looks  most  to  the  freedom  of  the  individual. 

As  the  natural  political  division  is  a  dual  one,  so  here  is  the  natural  line  on 
which  the  permanent  parties  in  every  country  inevitably  divide.  Here  are  the  Right 
and  Left  of  the  French  Assembly,  the  Cavalier  and  Roundhead  of  the  England  of 
Charles  I;  the  Tory  and  Whig  of  the  England  of  George  III;  the  Conservative  and 
Liberal  of  the  England  of  Victoria. 

These  parties  frequently  change  and  oftentimes  exchange  their  names;  they 
often  seem  to  a  certain  extent  to  exchange  membership — sometimes  coronet  and 
mitre  glitter  in  the  democratic  van,  as  when  what  was  quaintly  termed  '  'the  army 
of  God  and  Holy  Church"  wrested  from  John  the  Great  Charter  of  Anglo-Saxon 
Liberties;  sometimes,  even  the  Crown  itself,  as  when  Kings  backed  by  Commons 
destroyed  feudal  privileges;  sometimes  the  aristocratic  party  finds  its  strongest 
bulwark  in  the  prejudices  of  the  common  people  ;  sometimes  the  moneyed 
power  avails  itself  successfully  of  the  ignorance  of  the  laboring  classes.  At  times 
these  parties  seem  to  superficial  observers  even  to  have  exchanged  characters — the 
party  which  is  really  conservative  trying  to  pull  down ;  the  party  which  is  really  pro 
gressive  trying  to  conserve;  yet  in  any  normal  condition  of  things,  by  whoever  looks 
to  essentials,  the  identity  of  these  two  great  parties  can  always  be  traced. 

"  Sir,"  said  Dr.  -Johnson,  "  I  perceive  from  your  childish  jealousy  of  the  power 
of  the  Crown,  that  you  are  a  vile  Whig.  The  crown  has  not  power  enough." 

"  Sir,"  the  sturdy  Briton  would  say,  were  he  an  American  of  to-day — "  Sir;  I 
perceive  from  your  childish  jealousy  of  the  interference  of  the  Federal  Government 
that  you  are  a  vile  Democrat.  It  is  the  pernicious  doctrine  of  States'  Rights,  not 
the  power  of  the  general  Government,  that  the  country  has  to  fear." 

The  Two  Permanent  American  Parties. 

Immediately  upon  the  acknowledgment  of  our  independence,  these  two  natural 
political  divisions  showed  themselves  in  the  United  States  as  the  Federal  and  anti- 
Federal  parties,  the  one  anxious  that  the  new  Government  should  be  a  strong  one 
the  other  looking  with  suspicion  upon  all  concentration  of  power.  Out  of  their  clash 
and  through  their  compromises  grew  that  wondrous  instrument,  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States — itself  the  most  striking  proof  of  how  the  early  republic  called  her 
best  brain  into  her  service;  an  instrument  which,  when  we  consider  its  beautiful 
adaptations,  so  strong  yet  so  elastic,  so  compact  yet  all-embracing,  so  nicely  poised, 
so  well  guarded,  seems,  looking  at  the  times  and  the  lack  of  previous  experience, 
like  the  highest  act  of  constructive  statesmanship. 

The  Constitution  adopted,  we  find  these  two  parties  fighting  over  its  interpreta 
tion — the  party  of  strong  government  and  aristocratic  tendencies  struggling  to  gain 
by  strained  constructions  what  had  been  lost  in  the  debates  of  the  Convention,  and 
the  party  of  individual  rights  and  democratic  tendencies  struggling  for  strict  con 
struction  and  the  curtailment  of  government  to  necessary  functions.  Over  funding 
system  and  national  bank,  internal  improvements  and  tariff,  and  countless  minor 
questions,  under  varying  names,  but  with  clearly  drawn  lines,  they  waged  the  battle, 
until  the  conflict  over  slavery,  culminating  in  civil  war,  sunk  in  momentous  issue  the 
questions  of  normal  times. 

The  war  ended,  the  slavery  question  settled,  thank  God,  forever,  what  parties  do 
we  find  arise?  What  but  those  that  any  political  philosopher  might  have  predicted 
would  arise?  It  is  the  two  old  parties— the  two  natural  parties — which  stand  front 
ing  each  other,  again  to  struggle  for  the  power  of  shaping  the  destinies  of  the  Re 
public  ! 

Be  not  deceived  by  the  clamor  upon  false  issues ;  be  not  confused  by  finding  in 
the  two  parties  individual  opinions  or  acts  that  seem  very  much  alike.  Look  below 
the  froth  of  the  surface  and  the  eddies  of  the  border  for  the  real  direction  of  the  op 
posing  tides.  Search  underneath  the  words  of  platforms  for  their  real  meaning; 
consider  what  are  the  principles  upon  which  each  proposes  to  conduct  the  govern- 


ment,  and  what  is  the  real  difference?  You  will  find  one  party  endeavoring  to  ex 
tend  the  power  and  functions  of  the  General  Government,  the  other  supporting  the 
rights  of  the  States;  one  enacting  and  maintaining  a  tariff  for  protection,  the  other 
advocating  a  tariff  for  revenue ;  one  party  which  has  the  support  of  nearly  all  the  cor 
porations  and  great  moneyed  interests  of  the  country,  the  other  naturally  distrusted  by 
them.  The  more  carefully  you  look,  the  more  clearly  will  you  see  that  the  distinct 
ive  features  of  the  two  parties  which  must  divide  the  suffrages  of  the  American 
people  in  this  election  are  the  distinctive  features  of  the  two  old  historic  parties — 
that  they  are  in  fact  the  same  parties. 

The  Two  Great  American  Party  Leaders- 

The  two  great  men  who  were  the  first  leaders  of  American  parties  may  justly  be 
considered  their  best  exponents;  and  if  a  great  party  can  be  personified  by  a  man, 
Alexander  Hamilton  and  Thomas  Jefferson  may  stand  forth  to  all  time  as  the  per 
sonification  of  the  conflicting  ideas  expressed  in  oar  two  permanent  parties.  The 
one — pure  in  character,  patriotic  in  purpose  and  with  mental  abilities  which  must 
excite  the  admiration  even  of  those  who  differ  most  from  his  political  philosophy — 
looked  back  over  the  history  of  the  world  and  saw  every  attempt  at  self-government 
end  in  anarchy  or  despotism.  With  profound  convictions  of  the  inability  of  the 
people  to  govern  themselves,  he  regarded  the  British  Constitution,  as  it  then  existed, 
as  the  best  expression  of  human  wisdom,  and  to  that  model  he  aimed  to  conform  our 
polity.  Looking  for  means  to  forced  interpretations  of  the  Constitution,  he  sought  to 
build  up  a  strong  Central  Government,  which,  by  the  manifold  nature  of  its  func 
tions,  the  elaborateness  of  its  administration,  the  number  of  its  employes  and  the 
amount  of  its  revenues  and  expenditures,  should  dwarf  the  relative  importance  of  the 
States,  and  become  not  a  mere  creature  for  specific  ends,  but  a  power  in  the  land. 
By  means  of  national  banks,  a  national  debt  and  funding  system  a  network  of  in 
ternal  improvements  and  a  scheme  of  protective  duties,  bounties  and  subsidies,  he 
strove  to  intertwine  the  interests  of  capital  with  the  government,  and  thus  build  up 
the  counterpoise  to  democracy  which  he  believed  necessary,  and  which  was  supplied 
in  the  English  system  by  an  hereditary  executive,  a  landed  aristocracy,  an  Estab 
lished  Church,  the  rotten  boroughs  and  a  vast  debt. 

The  other  great  statesman,  whose  pen  traced  our  Declaration  of  Independence, 
looked  with  fervent  faith  upon  the  possibilities  of  the  future.  The  failure  of  all 
previous  attempts  at  self-government  he  traced  to  a  lack  of  democracy,  not  to  an  over 
plus  of  it,  and  above  all  things  he  dreaded  the  insidious  inroads  of  the  aristocratic  prin 
ciple.  He  desired  to  localize  government  as  much  as  possible,  that  it  might  be  kept 
close  to  the  people  and  within  their  control,  to  reduce  the  powers  and  functions  and 
revenues  and  expenses  of  the  General  Government  to  the  minimum  which  would  en 
able  it  to  perform  its  necessary  functions,  and  to  keep  the  money  power  out  of  poli 
tics  by  leaving  everything  regarding  the  investment  of  capital  and  the  development 
of  industry  to  the  voluntary  principle. 

These  two  conflicting  ideas  can  be  traced  broadly  and  clearly  in  the  principles 
and  actions  of  the  two  great  parties  all  through  our  political  history.  The  one  the 
party  of  centralized  government,  of  an  elaborate  administration,  of  a  protective 
tariff,  of  national  banks  and  favored  corporations — the  party  of  the  money  power. 
The  other,  the  party  of  States  Rights  and  strict  construction  ;  of  simple  government, 
and  free  trade — the  party  of  the  people. 

The  Genealogy  of  our  Parties- 

The  genealogy  is  clear.  The  anti-Federal  party  became  first  the  Republican  and 
then  the  Democratic  party.  The  Federal  party  became  the  Whig  party  and  then 
disappeared  from  sight  to  re-appear  as  the  Republican  party.  I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  this  was  the  original  aim  of  the  Republican  party.  On  the  contrary,  its  very 
name  was  chosen  to  typify  the  revival  in  it  of  the  Democracy  of  Jefferson,  and,  called 
into  existence  by  the  growing  agitation  of  the  slavery  question,  it  drew  from  both 
parties  without  respect  to  what  may  be  called  the  normal  issues.  But  the  Demo 
cratic  party,  maintaining  its  organization  while  that  of  the  Whig  party  had  been 
abandoned,  it  became  an  easy  matter  to  impress  the  Whig  economic  policy  upon  the 
new  party  while  the  popular  attention  was  fixed  on  the  struggle,  and  the  moneyed 
interests  and  protected  classes  having  once  secured  the  organization,  have  kept  it. 

In  spite  of  the  change  in  names,  in  circumstances,  and  in  battle  cries,  were  those 
intellectual  giants  of  our  early  prime  to  arise  from  their  graves  to-night,  can  you 
doubt  that  they  would  know  their  own  ?  That  Alexander  Hamilton  would  take  his 


m 

stand  with  the  party  bearing  the  name  of  that  which  he  used  to  oppose;  and  that 
Thomas  Jefferson,  though  in  his  lifetime  he  called  himself  a  Republican,  would  find 
his  place  in  the  ranks  of  the  Democracy  ? 

It  is  not  with  an  irrelevant  purpose  that  I  have  thus  sought  to  fix  the  character 
and  trace  the  genealogy  of  the  parties  contending  in  this  campaign  for  the  possession 
of  the  Government .  I  wish  to  show  clearly  that  the  real  issue  between  them  is  not 
upon  any  question  growing  out  of  the  war,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  unionism  or 
secession.  When  we  see  that  these  parties  are  not  things  of  to-day,  but  have  existed 
since  the  beginning  of  our  republic  ;  when  we  see  that  under  changing  names  and 
varying  circumstances  they  have  always  exhibited  the  sarne  general  character,  we  see 
that  their  real  differences  are  permanent  ones  ;  that  they  represent  two  diverse  poli 
cies  of  government,  between  which,  whether  wittingly  or  unwittingly,  each  voter  in  this 
election  must  choose. 

And  now  that  we  have  seen  what  these  two  parties  are,  and  what  is  the  policy 
each  represents,  let  us  turn  to  the  evils  we  would  have  reformed. 

Corruption  and  its  Causes- 

It  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  attempt  to  paint  the  state  of  political  corruption  to 
which  we  have  been  reduced. 

We  all  see  it;  we  all  feel  it.  It  is  the  dark  background  to  our  national  rejoicing, 
the  skeleton  which  has  stood  by  us  at  the  feast.  Our  Fourth  of  July  orators  do  not. 
proclaim  it;  our  newspapers  do  not  announce  it;  we  hardly  whisper  it  to  one  another, 
but  we  all  know,  for  we  all  feel,  that  beneath  all  our  centennial  rejoicing  there 
exists  in  the  public  mind  to-day  a  greater'doubt  of  the  success  of  Republican  insti 
tutions  than  has  existed  before  within  the  memory  of  our  oldest  man.  And  not  with 
out  reason.  Before  the  storm  the  stout  tree  may  bend  yet  not  break.  The  howling 
winds  may  tear  from  it  branch  after  branch;  the  lightning  of  heaven  may  rive  it  in 
twain,  yet  if  it  be  strong  of  heart  and  sound  of  root  it  shall  send  up  new  shoots  to 
hail  the  sun  again  in  greener  glory.  But  when  the  worms  attack  it;  when  a  black 
mass  of  rottenness  is  eating  out  its  heart,  and  slimy  things  are  cutting  through  its 
roots,  though  the  air  be  soft  and  the  winds  be  hushed,  though  to  the  outward  eye 
everything  proclaims  the  strength  and  majesty  of  the  monarch  of  the  forest,  we  know 
the  tree  is  doomed  ! 

We  are  told  that  these  evils  are  the  natural  results  of  the  war.  But  I  deny 
that  they  are  in  any  sense  the  results  of  the  war,  except  as  the  war  has  been  used  as 
a  cover  under  which  to  rivet  a  false  policy  on  the  country  while  keeping  the  people 
still  voting  on  war  issues.  Did  the  Mexican  war  bear  any  such  fruit?  Did  the  war  of 
1812  ?  The  close  of  the  Revolution  left  the  nation  in  a  far  worse  condition  than  the 
close  of  the  Civil  War — with  resources  more  severely  strained,  with  credit  more 
impaired;  with  currency  more  disordered,  and  with  a  government  yet  to  create  instead 
of  a  government  which  had  come  intact  through  the  severest  ordeal.  Yet,  did  any  such 
corruptions  as  those  which  now  disgrace  us  mark  the  period  following  the  Revolution? 

That  war  is  in  many  ways  demoralizing,  it  is  true.  But  war  waged  for  a  high 
idea  does  not  transmute  patriotism  into  jobbery,  statesmanship  into  demagoguism, 
yirtue  into  corruption.  On  the  contrary,  it  calls  forth  the  highest  traits  of  charac 
ter.  Who  does  not  feel  that  his  faith  in  the  patriotism,  in  the  spirit,  in  the  endur 
ance  and  devotion  of  the  American  people  is  stronger  for  what  in  the  war  they 
showed  themselves  capable  of  doing  and  suffering  ?  What  grander  spectacle  has 
history  ever  presented  than  that  afforded  by  the  uprising  of  the  nation  wh^n  the 
first  shot  which  tore  the  flag  showed  there  was  real  danger  that  the  Union  might  be 
rent  in  two  ?  "  They  fight  but  for  an  idea,"  our  foreign  critics  said.  Yet  for  that 
idea  men  marched  to  death  by  hundreds  ©f  thousands;  the  greatest  exactions,  the 
heaviest  burdens,  were  uncomplainingly  borne ;  wealth  was  poured  out  as  though  it- 
were  water,  and  poverty  stinted  itself  to  send  some  little  comfort  to  the  boys  in  the 
field,  or  provide  some  little  luxury  for  the  wounded  in  the  hospital.  Has  the  war 
made  our  patriotism  cold;  our  love  of  country  less  ?  Has  it  dampened  our  faith  in 
the  American  people  ?  Ah;  we  know  now,  if  we  never  knew  before,  that  it  is  not 
idle  pageantry  that  makes  our  cities  bloom  with  flags  as  in  the  anniversary  we  have 
just  kept.  Bunting  and  calico  typify  something  as  real  as  the  breeze  that  shakes 
their  folds.  For  the  idea  which  that  flag  expresses  every  stripe  has  been  wet  with 
blood ;  for  the  love  of  it  every  star  has  been  dimmed  with  tears ! 

And,  gentlemen,  if  it  is  not  yet  here,  the  time  will  come,  when  our  children  will 
look  back  with  mournful  pride,  not  only  to  the  devotion  which  maintained  the  Union, 
but  to  the  fortitude  with  which  the  Southern  cause  was  sustained — when  in  the  glories 


of  a  common  blood  will  be  included  the  splendid  courage  of  the  South,  as  well  as 
the  heroic  determination  of  the  North,  as  we  include  in  our  heritage  of  pride  the 
fiery  charge  of  Bupert's  Cavaliers  with  the  immovable  steadfastness  of  Roundhead 
pikes — as  we  recognize  in  the  dogged  bravery  with  which  in  the  face  of  the  hail  of 
death  that  line  of  scarlet  and  steel  moved  up  the  slope  of  Bunker  Hill  the  same 
high  spirit  that  from  the  slender  earthworks  on  the  crest  hurled  it  back ! 

Many  ihings  the  war  may  teach  us,  but  not  to  distrust  the  manly  qualities  of 
our  people.  Many  are  the  lessons  which  we  may  read  in  its  million  graves,  but  not 
the  lesson  that  the  virtues  of  our  blood  have  run  out.  The  high  qualities  which 
the  blending  of  Celt  and  Saxon,  Norman  and  Dane,  gave  to  a  breed  of  men  that 
hsve  yet  to  know  defeat  except  from  their  own  blood;  the  high  qualities  which  have 
made  our  race  the  standard  bearer  oi  human  liberty;  the  high  qualities  which  are 
making  the  language  of  one  little  island  the  universal  tongue  of  the  modern  world, 
are  as  strong,  as  steadfast,  as  ever! 

The  object  of  telling  you  that  these  things  are  due  to  the  war  is  to  induce  you 
to  quietly  rest  in  the  belief  that  they  will  remedy  themselves  in  time.  But  if  this 
were  the  case  these  evils  would  be  growing  less  and  less  apparent.  On  the  contrary, 
during  the  eleven  years  that  have  elapsed  since  the  war,  has  not  corruption  been 
growing  more  and  more  flagrant;  the  complaints  of  labor  louder  and  louder? 

No;  it  is  not  the  war  that  is  responsible  for  all  this.  It  is  the  policy  upon  which 
the  Government  has  been  administered.  Our  public  service  is  corrupt  because  the 
natural  result  of  our  laws  has  been  to  engender  corruption ;  our  industry  is  oppressed 
because  our  laws  have  prevented  its  natural  development;  the  masses  are  becoming 
poorer  and  the  few  richer,  because  the  whole  tendency  of  our  system  of  finance  and 
taxation  is  to  make  $100,000  more  profitable  in  the  hands  of  one  man  than  in  the 
hands  of  a  hundred.  These  results  are  not  accidents ;  they  are  not  surprises.  They 
are  the  legitimate  workings  of  natural  laws-  of  laws  as  fixed  and  far-reaching  as  that 
which  drives  this  earth  in  its  orbit  round  the  sun 

If  we  were  to  take  particular  by  particular  the  manifestations  of  corruption  and 
industrial  depression,  and  trace  them  up  from  effect  to  cause,  we  would  find  ultimately 
the  source  of  all  of  which  we  complain  in  the  policy  upon  which  our  government 
has  been  administered;  but  inasmuch  as  we  shall  get  a  quicker  and  more  com 
prehensive  view,  let  me  substitute  the  deductive  for  the  inductive  form  of  inquiry, 
and  trace  that  policy  downward,  from  generals  to  particulars— from  cause  to  effect. 

If  we  analyze  this  policy  we  will  find  it  the  same  as  that  which  I  ascribed  to  the 
Hamiltonian  party.  A  strong  and  centralized  government,  the  use  of  the  power  of 
taxation  to  foster  special  interests  and  forms  of  industry,  the  engaging  by  the 
General  Government  in  a  system  of  internal  improvements,  and  the  creation  and 
providing  for  of  great  corporations. 

How  Centralization  Posters  Corruption. 

Now,  a  strong  government  means  an  expensive  government.  It  means  a  large 
army  and  navy;  heavier  taxes,  more  officers,  more  contractors,  more  stipendiaries 
of  various  kinds — that  is  to  say,  an  increase  in  the  class  interested  in  heavy  expendi 
tures;  an  increase  in  the  trading  capital  which  can  be  used  to  effect  nominations  and 
carry  elections,  and  by  thus  giving  to  those  who  will  use  such  agencies  an  advantage 
over  those  who  will  not,  a  constant  tendency  to  supplant  statesmen  by  corrupt  man 
ipulators,  and  to  make  our  representatives  the  representatives  of  special  interests  and 
not  of  the  people. 

Now,  what  does  centralization  mean  ?  It  means  the  removal  of  power  further 
from  the  people^  the  weakening  of  the  responsibility  which  the  representative  feels 
towards  his  constituents,  the  distraction  of  public  attention,  the  lessening  of  the 
power  of  public  opinion.  Centralization  is  the  great  enemy  of  republican  govern 
ment;  where  it  passes  a  certain  point  republicanism  becomes  impossible.  The 
reason  why  our  fathers  were  able  so  easily  to  establish  a  republican  form  of  govern 
ment  is,  that  they  were  used  to  local  self-government;  the  reason  why  a  republic, 
except  in  name,  is  impossible  in  France,  is,  that  her  people  are  used  to  a  centralized 
administration.  See  how  centralization  ties  our  hands  in  this  Chinese  matter,  com 
pelling  us  like  the  people  of  a  subject  province,  to  sue  a  power  three  thousand 
miles  away,  to  protect  us  from  an  evil,  fiom  which  we  ought  to  be  able  to  protect 
ourselves. 

But  there  is  an  obvious  instance  of  how  centralization  can  debauch  and  corrupt. 
The  carpet-baggers  in  the  Southern  States,  maintained  in  power  against  the  will  of  the 
people  of  those  States  by  the  central  authority  at  Washington,  and  feeling  no  re- 


L7J 

spc-nsibility,  except  to  that  power,  to  which  they  refer  their  quarrels  as  a  Koman 
Proconsul  in  a  distant  province  would  have  referred  to  the  Emperor,  have  not  only 
made  the  local  governments  in  those  States  the  most  profligate  ever  known  on  this 
continent,  but  have  sent  to  Congress  characterless  adventurers,  owing  no  responsi 
bility,  to  make  laws  for  the  North  as  well  as  the  South — to  vote  taxes  on  you  and 
me  at  the  bidding  of  any  one  who  would  bribe  them.  Better  far,  for  our  own  sakes, 
at  least,  had  we  denied  to  the  South  all  representation,  than  to  have  introduced  into 
Congress  this  utterly  irresponsible,  this  corrupt  and  corrupting  element. 

How  "Protective"  Taxes  Foster  Corruption. 

So  much  for  what  we  may  call  the  political  side  of  this  policy.  Let  us  now  look  at 
the  economic  side.  Under  this  policy  the  raisibg  of  revenue  is  considered  as  only 
one,  and  that  the  least  important,  of  the  ends  of  taxation.  The  other  and  most  im 
portant  end  is  the  enhancement  of  the  profits  of  certain  sets  of  capitalists,  or,  as 
the  system  is  called  by  its  advocates,  with  a  most  sublime  reliance  upon  the  stupid 
ity  of  the  American  working  classes,  the  "protection  of  American  industry."  This 
profligate,  impoverishing  and  destructive  system  was  exploded  by  Adam  Smith  one 
hundred  years  ago,  and  has  been  condemned  by  the  American  people  whenever  the 
question  was  fairly  submitted  to  them,  and  except  to  point  out  its  results  as  perti 
nent  to  the  question  we  are  considering,  I  shall  have  nothing  to  say  of  it  further  than, 
if  it  be  correct,  then  every  new  invention  which  facilitates  communication  or 
diminishes  its  cost,  is  a  public  calamity,  and  that  instead  of  a  line  of  custom  houses 
on  our  seaboard  we  should  be  infinitely  richer  and  more  prosperous  were  each  State 
an  independent  nation  with  a  line  of  Custom  Houses  around  its  own  border. 

But  how  this  policy  has  wished  to  corrupt  the  Government  it  is  easy  to  see: 

Of  the  thousands  of  articles  upon  which  we  levy  import  duties,  there  is  hardly  a 
single  one  upon  which  the  tax  has  not  been  imposed  with  more  or  less  reference  to 
the  enhancement  of  private  interests.  All  the  manufacturers,  importers  and  dealers 
in  these  articles  have  thus  had  a  constant  direct  moneyed  interest  in  influencing  the 
action  of  Congress ;  for  there  has  not  been  a  session  since  1860,  when  the  Morrill 
tariff  was  adopted,  in  which  there  has  not  been  more  or  less  tinkering  or  attempted 
tinkering  with  the  tariff;  and  there  will  not  be,  so  long  as  this  Protective  system  shall 
last.  The  agents  of  these  interests  have  filled,  and  still  fill,  the  lobbies  of  Congress, 
where  their  money  has  gone  by  the  million  to  bribe  and  debauch,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
contributions  they  have  made  to  pack  Conventions  and  carry  elections.  But  this  is 
only  one  side  of  it.  While  the  enactment  and  maintenance  of  these  taxes  has  en 
gendered  corruption,  once  imposed  they  have  become  a  constant  incentive  to  corrup 
tion  of  another  set  of  officials.  The  high  taxes  thus  imposed  by  corruption  have 
offered  such  enormous  premiums  for  evasion  that  all  the  horde  of  revenue  officers, 
all  the  spies  and  informers,  and  seizures  and  moities,  have  not  been  able  to  prevent 
it.  While  on  the  one  hand  officers  of  the  Government  have  been  habitually  cor 
rupted  to  impose  taxes,  on  the  other  hand  officers  of  the  Government  have  been 
habitually  corrupted  to  wink  at  their  evasion.  While  the  Iron  and  Sjeel  Association, 
and  the  Eastern  wool  and  cotton  manufacturers,  and  the  Ohio  salt  men  and  all  the 
countless  combinations  for  the  imposition  and  maintenance  of  taxes  upon  the  Ameri 
can  people  keep  their  agents  at  Washington  to  sustain  the  tariff,  the  largest  firms  in 
the  country  are  engaged  in  smuggling,  by  the  bribery  of  the  Custom  House  officers 
and  the  making  of  false  oaths.  All  this  not  only  corrupts  the  Government  through 
all  its  branches  (for  corruption  spreads  like  contagious  disease),  but  it  directly  cor 
rupts  the  people  themselves.  The  honest  is  driven  out  of  business,  while  the  un 
scrupulous  waxes  rich. 

So  with  internal  taxes .  It  is  not  only  a  matter  of  reason,  but  experience,  that 
such  a  tax  as  we  levy  upon  whisky  cannot  be  collected,  and  that  a  smaller  tax  would 
yield  a  greater  revenue;  yet  this  tax  is  kept  up  at  the  instigation  of  the  whisky  rings, 
who  find  in  it  a  prohibition  to  every  honest  distiller.  The  tax  is  levied  on  the 
people,  but,  instead  of  passing  into  the  treasury,  millions  are  diverted  into  the  hands 
of  corrupt  combinations  to  enrich  law-breakers,  to  suborn  witnesses,  to  corrupt  pub 
lic  officers,  to  maintain  venal  newspapers,  to  pack  conventions,  and  buy  votes  at  the 
polls.  The  people  are  taxed  to  pay  the  expenses  of  corrupting  those  who  are  intrusted 
with  making  the  laws  and  those  who  are  intrusted  with  enforcing  them. 

How  Favored  Corporations  Foster  Corruption. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  for  me  to  more  than  allude  to  the  part,  in  producing  the 
present  reign  of  corruption,  which  the  policy  towards  corporations,  upon  which  the 


1.8] 

Government,  as  now  administered  by  the  Republican  party,  has  had.  Look  at  the 
National  Banks.  Used  as  we  have  been  to  banks  which  confined  themselves  to  legit 
imate  banking  functions,  it  is  unnecessary  to  tell  any  California!!  that  for  the  exist 
ence  of  these  institutions,  as  banks  of  issue,  there  is  not  the  slightest  use  or  excuse. 
Yet,  see  them  lending  the  Government  three  hundred  millions  at  a  high  rate  of  interest 
and  borrowing  back  two  hundred  and  seventy  millions  without  interest  at  all.  Is  it 
strange  that  they  should  have  money  to  spend  in  politics,  and  that,  with  their  enor 
mous  capital  and  power  over  business,  they  should  be  largely  represented  in 
Congress  ? 

Look  at  the  railroad  companies,  for  whom  the  Government  has  been  made  a 
special  Providence,  and  the  lands  of  the  people  and  the  taxes  gathered  from  the 
people  an  endowment  fund.  See  these  companies  sending  their  attorneys  to  sit  in 
Congress  in  the  name  of  the  people.  See  them  using  the  spoil  of  Credit  Mobilier 
and  Contract  and  Finance  Company  to  corrupt  whoever  is  capable  of  corruption 
and  to  keep  out  of  office  whoever  is  not.  See  them  in  your  State  politics :  buying 
legislators  like  sheep,  debauching  parties,  and  even  interfering  in  county  elections. 
Look  at  the  Pacific  Mail  Steamship  Company  spending  a  million  to  buy  from  Con 
gress  a  grant  of  half  a  million  dollars  a  year  of  the  people's  money,  and  contributing 
$25,000  as  its  quota  towards  carrying  the  single  State  of  California  for  the  Republican 
ticket.  These  things  are  not  accidents;  they  are  the  natural,  the  inevitable  results  of 
admitting  the  principle  that  Government  may,  for  any  purpose,  or  on  any  pretense, 
enrich  corporations  at  the  public  expense.  The  corruption  which  we  have  seen  fol 
lows  the  admission  of  this  principle,  as  thunder  follows  lightning  or  heat  results 
from  fire. 

And,  now,  putting  all  these  things  together,  and  remembering  how  corruption 
engenders  corruption,  how  the  vast  extension  of  the  sphere  and  objects  of  govern 
ment  which  this  policy  implies  gives  temptation  and  opportunity  to  corruption,  and 
how  the  constant  tendency  of  the  introduction  of  moneyed  influences  into  politics 
is,  to  keep  the  best  talentand  the  highest  character  out  of  the  public  service  and  to 
put  in  the  mediocre  and  the  dishonest,  have  I  not  sufficiently  accounted  for  the  reign 
of  corruption  of  which  you  all  see  the  indications  ? 

The  Causes  of  Business  Stagnation  and  Industrial  Depression 

And  as  corruption  springs  directly  and  necessarily  from  the  policy  upon  which 
the  government  has  been  administered,  so  does  the  business  stagnation  and  the  in 
dustrial  depression  of  which  complaints  have  become  chronic.  Governments  have 
no  purse  of  Fortunatus  in  which  to  dip.  There  is  but  one  source  from  which  all  the 
expenses  of  this  costly  and  elaborate  government  can  be  defrayed;  there  is  but  one 
fund  from  which  can  be  drawn  the  spoils  of  corruption,  the  plunder  of  rings,  the 
gains  which  make  corporations  more  powerful  than  the  State.  Every  cent  that  is 
spent,  every  cent  that  is  wasted,  every  cent  that  is  stolen,  comes  from  the  earnings  of  the 
people.  To  provide  for  this  extravagance,  to  supply  for  this  waste,  to  build  up  these 
great  fortunes,  the  farmer  rises  early  and  works  late;  the  miner  delves  thousands  of 
feet  underground;  young  girls  and  tender  children  stand  all  day  in  the  whirr  and 
clash  of  the  factory  looms;  the  mechanic  denies  himself  a  holiday;  the  laborer's 
family  are  pent  up  in  the  squalor  of  a  tenement  house.  Yes;  and  prostitutes  walk 
the  streets,  and  children  grow  up  ignorant  and  debased,  and  brain  and  muscle  that 
ought  to  go  to  the  enrichment  of  society  are  turned  to  prey  upon  it ! 

The  Federal  tax-gatherer  is  everywhere.  In  each  exchange  by  which  labor  is 
converted  into  commodities,  there  he  is  standing  between  buyer  and  seller  to  take 
his  toll.  Whether  it  be  a  match  or  a  locomotive,  a  dishcloth  or  a  dress,  a  new  book 
or  a  glass  of  beer,  the  tax-gatherer  steps  in.  He  says  to  Labor  as  the  day's  toil  begins: 
"Ah!  you  want  to  do  a  little  work  for  yourself  and  family.  Well,  first  work  an  hour 
to  pay  the  interest  on  the  national  debt  and  defray  the  necessary  expenses  of  govern 
ment;  and  then  another  hour  for  the  national  banks  and  subsidized  corporations,  and 
the  expenses  of  governing  the  Southern  States!  Then  an  hour  for  the  army  and 
the  navy  and  the  contractors  thereof;  then  an  hour  for  the  manufacturers  of  New 
England,  and  an  hour  for  the  iron  millionaires  of  Pennsylvania;  half  an  hour  for  the 
Marine  Corps  and  the  various  comfortable  little  bureaus,  and  then  after  you  have 
done  a  little  work  for  your  State  government  and  a  little  work  for  your  county 
and  municipal  government,  and  a  little  work  for  your  landlord — then  you  can  have 
the  rest  of  the  day  to  work  for  yourself  and  family. 

Do  I  exaggerate?  Well,  gentlemen,  go  home;  consult  with  your  wives;  figure 
up  as  closely  as  you  can  your  average  daily  purchases  of  all  sorts :  ascertain  as  nearly 


[9] 

as  you  can  how  much  the  cost  of  each  article  is  enhanced  by  the  tax  upon  it,  and  by 
the  profit  which  each  dealer  through  whose  hands  it  passes  must  make  on  the  tax, 
and  then  you  will  be  able  to  see  how  much  I  exaggerate! 

How  the  Policy  of  our  Government  shackles  Labor- 

This  policy  upon  which  our  government  is  administered,  this  protective  and 
fostering  policy  which  uses  the  taxes  levied  upon  the  people  as  a  means  to  enrich 
favored  capitalists  and  build  up  monopolies,  is  like  a  great  ravening  beast  let  loose 
into  a  grain  field.  It  is  not  so  much  what  it  eats  as  what  it  tramples  down  and  de 
stroys.  The  ligatures  which  it  has  wound  around  every  limb  of  the  industrial  body 
have  impeded  the  circulation  that  is  essential  to  health.  Instead  of  the  constant 
action  and  reaction  which  maintain  the  healthy  equilibrium  and  harmonious  working 
of  all  the  parts,  we  have  fever  here  and  atrophy  there.  Why  is  is  that  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  men  stand  idle  in  all  the  great  centres  of  industry;  that  all  branches  of 
business  complain;  that  mills  run  on  half  time  or  are  closed  for  months  in  the  year; 
that  every  great  city  on  the  other  side  of  the  mountains  has  to  set  up  its  soup-houses  in 
winter,  to  deal  out  in  degrading  and  demoralizing  charity  the  means  of  sustenance  for 
which  the  recipients  would  gladly  work  ? 

The  favored  interests  for  whose  ostensible  benefit  this  restrictive  system  is 
maintained  and  the  short-sighted  fools  who  are  their  dupes,  talk  about  over-produc 
tion.  How  can  there  be  over-production  when  everybody  waiits  something  which 
some  one  else  would  be  glad  to  make?  These  hundreds  of  thousands  of  unemployed 
men  include  all  trades  and  avocations.  They  all  suffer  for  the  things  which  the 
labor  of  the  others  could  give  them;  they  are  aH  anxious  in  return  for  those  things 
to  exchange  their  own  labor.  Over-production!  Why,  gentlemen,  is  there  too  much 
coal  when  people  shiver  in  winter?  too  much  clothing  when  people  go  threadbare? 
too  many  shoes  when  people  go  barefoot?  too  many  houses  when  people  are  crowded 
together  like  pigs  in  a  sty?  too  much  food  when  people  starve?  It  is  not  over 
production  ;  it  is,  that  the  oppressive  burdens  laid  on  industry  by  government  have 
so  shackled  and  enervated  it  that  it  cannot  make  the  exchanges  which,  under  the 
modern  system,  of  a  minute  division  of  labor,  are  necessary  to  keep  labor  employed. 

Thanks  to  the  fact  that  we  are  engaged  in  skimming  the  cream  oft'  of  what  is  probably 
the  richest  country,  all  things  considered,  the  world  ever  saw,  and  to  the  further  fact 
that  we  are  so  situated  as  to  have  escaped  the  protective  effect  of  the  tariff",  we  of 
California  have  not  felt  the  effects  of  this  Government  policy  so  much  as  our  brothers 
of  the  older  States;  but  there  is  one  way  in  which  we  may  see  how  American  indus 
try  has  been  crushed  by  bad  laws.  Cross  to  Oakland  on  Sunday  when  the  vessels 
in  port  have  their  ensigns  set,  and  see  from  every  three  out  of  four  of  the  deep- 
water  vessels  in  our  bay  the  British  flag  flying.  Here  in  this  bay,  which  used  to  be 
crowded  with  the  graceful  forms  of  American  ships,  an  American  ship  is  almost  a  rarity, 
Sixteen  years  ago  American  ships  were  more  common  in  Melbourne  and  Calcutta, 
in  Shanghae  and  Kio,  ay,  even  in  the  Liverpool  docks,  than  they  are  to-day  in  this 
American  Bay.  Talk  about  the  Alabama  and  Shenandoah  having  produced  this  re 
sult!  Why,  you  might  as  well  talk  about  the  Gaspee  and  Slwnnon,  the  Orders  in 
Council  or  the  French  Spoliation.  Ever  since  the  war,  our  ship-builders  and  ship 
owners  have  been  begging  for  a  release  from  Protective  taxation,  that  they  might 
once  more  build  ships  and  sail  them,  not  alone  for  our  own  carrying  trade,  but  for 
that  of  the  world.  But  Congress  has  persistently  refused.  The  "Protective"  policy 
must  be  carried  out  if  it  sweeps,  as  it  surely  will,  the  American  flag  off  the  high  seas, 
except  when  carried  by  a  subsidized  vessel. 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  talk  about  the  currency  question.  Some  time  or  other 
I  would  like  to  show  you  how  through  this  juggle  of  currency  the  people  have  been 
fleeced.  But  for  us  to  be  now  quarrelling  over  the  currency  would  be  like  starving 
men  consuming  their  time  in  quarelling  over  the  kind  of  disheg  in  which  they  would 
eat  their  food  when  they  got  it.  without  taking  any  means  to  get  food.  One  homely 
illustration  will  suffice.  The  other  day  the  Government  advertised  that  it  would 
resume  specie  payment  in  San  Francisco  to  the  extent  of  exchanging  $50.000  in 
silver  for  $50,000  in  greenbacks.  Our  richest  money  lender  hired  a  lot  of  fellows  to 
stand  before  the  door  of  the  Sub-Treasury  all  night.  The  net  result  was  that  he 
made  the  difference— that  he,  this  man,  who  without  chick  or  child  is  rich  enough 
to  buy  out  a  good  sized  town,  is  so  much  the  richer,  and  that  we  are  so  much  the 
poorer.  For  when  a  man  gets  richer  without  creating  wealth,  somebody  must  be 
getting  poorer.  Now,  fellow-citizens,  this  is  but  a  sample  of  the  whole  financial 
policy  which  has  been  pursued  since  the  war — its  whole  aim  and  end  has  been  to 


[101 

make  the  rich  richer  and  the  poor  poorer,  and  so  long  as  the  Government  is  run  in 
the  interest  of  the  money  power,  this  will  be  the  case.  The  first  step  to  financial 
reform  is  to  wrest  control  from  that  power. 

The  Fault  one  of  Policy  not  of  Men. 

Now,  fellow-citizens,  this  is  the  policy  upon  which  our  government  has  been  and 
is  being  conducted.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  it  has  produced  corruption  and  im 
poverishment  ?  What  could  it  produce,  what  can  it  produce,  but  corruption  and 
impoverishment  ?  So  long  as  smoke  ascends,  as  water  runs  down  hill;  so  long  as 
it  remains  true  that  the  whole  is  equal  to  the  sum  of  all  its  parts,  such  a  policy  must 
produce  such  results.  Do  men  expect  grapes  of  thorns,  or  figs  of  thistles  ?  Why, 
then,  under  a  governmental  policy  which  offers  every  temptation  to  dishonesty,  and 
holds  out  every  reward  to  corruption,  should  we  hear  this  prating  about  men,  as 
though  the  accident  of  who  held  the  offices  was  the  cause  of  the  disease.  Fellow-citi 
zens,  I  have  not  time  to  defend  President  Grant,  but  he  needs  defense  from  his  own 
professed  friends,  who,  after  endorsing  him  in  their  platform,  are  now,  like  the  high 
priests  of  old,  laying  their  hands  upon  him  and  sending  him  out  into  the  wilderness, 
a  scapegoat  for  all  the  sins  of  the  party. 

Grant  has  enough  sins  to  answer  for ;  but  to  hold  him  responsible  for  all  this  cor 
ruption  would  be  about  as  sensible  as  to  hold  him  responsible  for  the  war.  It  is  the 
system,  not  the  man.  It  is  the  policy  upon  which  the  Government  has  been 
administered,  not  the  individuals  in  whose  hands  the  administration  has  been 
carried  on. 

And  the  question  presented  to  you  in  this  election  is  simply  this :  Shall  this 
policy  be  continued  or  shall  it  be  reversed?  That  is  the  issue.  Whatever  else  is 
talked  about  is  merely  the  prating  of  people  too  blind  to  see  what  is  really  involved 
in  this  election,  or  the  clap-trap  of  demagogues  to  draw  your  attention  from  the  main 
point.  On  the  one  side  stands  the  Republican  party  representing  the  policy  that  has 
corrupted  politics  and  fettered  industry ;  on  the  other  side  stands  the  Democratic 
party,  representing  a  policy  that  would  tend  to  reduce  temptations  to  corruption  and 
make  industry  free. 

Now,  fellow-citizens,  your  vote  at  this  election  must  be  a  choice  between  these 
two  policies  of  government.  ,  As  one  of  the  great  jury  on  whose  verdict  hangs  the 
future  of  the  country,  this  question  is  put  to  each  one  of  you.  You  cannot  evade  it; 
you  cannot  qualify  it;  your  answer  must  be  either  this  or  that. 

The  Appeal  to  Prejudice. 

But  you  will  be  told  that  in  voting  the  Democratic  ticket  you  will  be  voting  with 
ex-Rebels!  Well,  what  of  it?  Would  you  hesitate  to  trade  with  ex-Kebels?  Would  you 
hesitate  to  profess  a  religious  creed  to  which  your  conscience  impelled  you  because 
ex-Rebels  also  professed  it?  If  our  common  country  were  invaded  by  hostile  armies 
and  our  coasts  menaced  with  hostile  fleets,  would  you  hesitate  to  take  up  arms  in 
her  defence  because  ex-Kebels  would  also  be  found  in  the  ranks?  Why,  then,  when 
you  find  being  rivetted  on  the  country  a  policy  which  is  debauching  government  and 
people,  throttling  industry  and  pauperizing  labor,  should  you  hesitate  to  vote  against 
it  because  ex-Rebels  will  also  vote  against  it?  Must  you  submit  to  be  taxed  as  you 
are  taxed,  from  the  fear  that  if  you  vote  to  abolish  these  taxes  you  will  vote  with  ex- 
Rebels? 

You  are  told  that  the  Democratic  party  cannot  be  trusted.  Fellow  citizens, 
pause  a  moment  and  see  what  this  involves.  If  it  be  true,  it  is  a  confession  of  the 
absolute  failure  of  republican  government,  and  the  organs  of  the  aristocratic  party 
in  England  are  right  when  they  point  to  us  and  say  that  we  must  be  content  to  see 
our  government  sink  from  low  to  lower  depths  of  corruption,  absolutely  powerless  to 
prevent  it.  What  effect  would  it  have  upon  a  dishonest  cashier  to  know  that,  no 
matter  how  much  he  stole,  his  employer  was  afraid  to  discharge  him  ?  And  what 
effect  would  such  an  avowal  have  upon  the  employer's  fortunes  ? 

Fellow-cititiens,  unlike  the  men  who  address  such  arguments  to  you,  I  give  you 
credit  for  ordinary  intelligence.  It  is  not  necessary,  then,  for  to  me  tell  you  that  party 
lines  are  not  drawn  on  moral  character,  and  that  it  as  ridiculous  to  say  that  all  the 
honesty  is  in  one  party  and  all  the  dishonesty  in  the  other,  as  to  say  that  all  Presby 
terians  shave  their  chins  or  that  all  Methodists  wear  red  flannel  underclothes.  Nor 
is  it,  I  think,  necessary  for  me  to  tell  you  that  while  all  parties  contain  honorable  men 
and  unscrupulous  men,  the  constant  tendency  of  the  working  of  party  machinery  is 


•  [11] 

to  give  to  the  unscrupulous  the  party  management;  a  tendency  only  restrained  by  the 
necessity  of  getting  popular  support  at  the  polls.  As  competition  between  sellers 
keeps  down  prices  to  a  fair  profit,  so  does  the  competition  between  parties  keep  out 
of  office  flagrant  dishonesty.  To  say  that  the  Democratic  party,  if  it  got  power, 
would  assume  the  Rebel  debt,  permit  the  negroes  to  be  abused  or  cut  off  the  pensions 
of  Union  soldiers,  is  to  say  that  the  Democrats,  the  moment  they  got  power,  would 
be  so  disgusted  with  it  that  they  would  take  the  surest  means  to  put  their  opponents 
in  at  the  next  election.  To  say  that  the  Republican  party,  no  matter  what  it  does 
must  be  continued  in  power  from  fear  of  the  Democrats,  is  to  give  notice  to  the 
rogues  in  the  Republican  party  that  they  may  steal  as  much  as  they  can  and  put  in 
office  who  they  please. 

But,  fellow-citizens,  I  almost  feel  as  if  I  were  degrading  myself  and  insulting 
your  intelligence,  by  stopping  to  reply  to  such  arguments.  They  are  on  a  par 
with  the  stories  which  the  Chinese  litterati  tell  the  common  people  about  the  mission 
aries  being  anxious  to  get  children  into  the  Mission  schools  in  order  to  get  their 
eyes  and  livers  to  make  charms;  on  a  par  with  the  stories  which  the  slave  owners  at 
the  beginning  of  the  war  used  to  tell  the  negroes,  that  the  Federals  wanted  to  get  pos 
session  of  them  to  sell  them  in  Cuba.  The  Chinamen  sometimes  believed  these 
stories,  but  the  darkies  did  not,  and  I  think  it  only  fair  that  the  average  voter  should 
be  credited  with  as  much  intelligence  as  that  veracious  gentleman — the  Intelligent 
Contraband  of  the  war.  The  best  reply  I  have  heard  to  such  cant  is  that  made  by  a 
brave  Union  soldier  to  one  who  was  urging  him  to  help  elect  the  Republican  ticket 
on  the  ground  that  the  Democrats  could  not  be  trusted.  Said  he :  "  I  feel  about  it  a 
good  deal  like  John  Randolph,  who  once  at  a  hotel  called  a  waiter,  and,  pointing  to 
his  cup,  said,  'If  that  is  tea,  bring  me  coffee;  if  that  is  coffee,  bring  me  tea.'  For 
my  part,  if  it  is  loyalty  that  we  have  been  having  under  this  Administration,  I 
want  a  little  something  else!" 

A  Question  for  Republicans. 

Fellow-citizens  who  still  call  yourselves  Republicans,  as  one  who  contributed  all 
he  could  to  the  first  successes  of  that  party  and  steadily  voted  with  it  until  the  sla 
very  question  and  the  war  was  finally  settled,  let  me  ask  you  to  put  the  inquiry  to 
yourselves,  "What  are  you  voting  for,  now?"  Are  ycii  so  attached  to  a  name,  are 
you  such  slaves  of  a  magic  word,  that  when  the  whisky  ring  and  the  fattened  cor 
porations  and  the  protected  manufacturers,  the  thieving  contractors;  the  cormorants 
wMo  rob  your  living  soldiers  of  their  paltry  pay;  the  ghouls  who  traffic  in  the  head 
stones  of  your  dead  heroes,  seize  the  old  banner  and  shout  the  old  war-cry,  you 
must  rally  to  their  defense?  Was  it  your  object  in  joining  the  Republican  party  to 
rivit  a  policy  on  the  country  by  means  of  which  the  classes  who  grew  rich  during  the 
sacrifices  and  slaughter  of  the  war  should  grow  richer  after  the  peace? 

Did  you  bargain  for  such  work  as  this  when  you  joined  the  Republican  party  ? 
I  think  not.  If  you  became  Republicans,  as  I  was  a  Republican,  it  was  from  the 
hatred  of  human  slavery.  Fellow-citizens,  negro  slavery  is  dead;  but  cast  your  eyes 
over  the  North  to-day  and  see  a  worse  than  negro  slavery  taking  root  under  the 
pressure  of  the  policy  you  are  asked  as  Republicans  to  support  by  your  votes.  See 
seventy  thousand  men  out  of  work  in  the  Pennsylvania  coal  fields;  fifty  thousand 
laborers  asking  for  bread  in  the  city  of  New  York;  the  alms-houses  of  Massachu 
setts  crowded  to  repletion  in  the  Summer  time;  unemployed  men  roving  over  the 
West  in  great  bands,  stealing  what  they  cannot  earn.  See  in  the  sultry  Eastern  Sum 
mer  little  children  gasping  for  breath  in  the  squalor  of  the  tenement  houses;  see  in 
the  bitter  Eastern  Winter,  barefooted  girls  and  boys  dodging  the  liveried  equipages 
of  wealth  on  the  frozen  pavement  in  the  effort  to  earn  a  penny.  See  when  the  lamps 
are  lighted,  and  before  the  millionaire's  door  the  costly  carpet  is  spread,  that  dainty 
satin  slippers  may  not  touch  the  pave  as  they  alight  from  silk-lined  carriages — see 
the  long  procession  of  prostitutes  that  steal  out  to  walk  the  streets — many  of  them 
iris  of  education  and  refinement,  many  of  them  girls  whose  fathers  lie  in  forgotten 
graves  on  Southern  battle  fields,  a  sacrifice  for  the  perpetuity  of  this  Union!  Read 
the  cold  matter-of-fact  reports  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  and 
see  how  a  generation  is  growing  up  there  condemned  to  the  hopeless  slavery  of  the 
mill;  how  in  New  England — New  England  of  the  free  school,  the  meeting-house,  the 
printing  press — New  England  that  wept,  and  gave  and  voted  and  fought  for  her 


brother  of  the  black  skin — all  the  horrors  of  child  factory  labor  are  being  enacted. 
Ah,  gentlemen,  sadder  than  any  cry  that  ever  came  from  the  cotton-field  or  cane- 
brake  is  the  low  moan  of  the  children : 

They  are  weary  e»e  they  run  ; 
They  have  never  seen  the  sunshine  nor  the  glory, 

Which  is  brighter  than  the  sun. 
They  know  the  grief  of  man.  without  his  wisdom, 

They  sink  in  man's  despair  without  its  calm  ; 
Are  slaves  without  the  liberties  of  Christdom, 
Are  martyrs,  by  the  pang  without  the  palm  ! 
***** 

They  look  up  with  their  pale  and  sunken  faces, 

And  their  look  is  dread  to  see, 
For  they  mind  you  of  their  angels  in  high  places, 

With  eyes  turned  on  Deity  ! 
"  How  long,"  they  say,  "  how  long,  O,  cruel  nation, 

Will  you  stand  to  move  the  world  on  a  child's  heart — 
Stifle  down  with  mailed  heel  its  palpitation, 

And  tread  onward  to  your  throne  amid  the  mart  ?" 
Their  blood  splashes  upward,  O,  gold-heaper, 

And  your  purple  shows  your  path  ! 
But  the  child's  sob  in  the  silence  curses  deeper 

Than  the  strong  man  in  his  wrath  ! 

Ah,  gentlemen,  that  I  had  the  sympathetic  eloquence  of  Sheridan,  the  logic  red- 
hot  with  passion  that  flowed  from  the  lips  of  Burke !  If  I  could  paint  these  things 
so  that  you  would  see  and  feel  them — for  your  country's  sake,  for  your  children's 
sake,  for  your  own  soul's  sake,  you  would  not  dare  vote  to  perpetuate  a  policy  from 
which  flow  such  evils  ! 

Men  and  Reform. 

Fellow-citizens,  whatever  your  previous  affiliations  may  have  been,  if  you  would 
vote  for  reform,  you  must  vote  with  the  party  whose  policy  is  calculated  to  work  re 
form.  I  care  not  what  Mr.  Hayes'  wishes  or  intentions  may  be.  The  moment  he 
takes  office  he  will  be  surrounded  by  every  corrupt  element  already  intrenched  in 
power.  Personally,  he  may  be  as  pure  as  the  snow;  but  will  that  avail?  Can  he  turn 
his  back  on  the  men  and  the  influences  that  took  him  from  comparative  obscurity  and 
set  him  on  the  dazzling  heights  of  the  chieftainship  of  forty-five  millions  of  people  ? 
Can  he  disregard  all  the  claims  of  service,  all  the  obligations  of  gratitude,  and  cut 
and  carve  and  slash  among  his  own  political  and  personal  friends?  Fellow-citizens, 
if  you  think  so,  you  have  but  the  faintest  appreciation  of  the  real  difficulties  of  re 
form,  or  you  must  imagine  that  the  Republican  wire-pullers  have,  under  the  nanfe  of 
Rutherford  B.  Hayes,  nominated  the  Archangel  Gabriel,  and  not  a  man  born  of 
woman.  But  even  admitting  that  Mr.  Hayes  is  possessed  of  all  the  genius  of  Caesar, 
and  all  the  self-sacrificing  virtues  of  the  elder  Cato,  what  of  real  reform  can  any  man 
or  set  of  men  effect  so  long  as  the  source  of  corruption  is  untouched  —so  long  as 
the  policy  which  produces  corruption  is  maintained? 

I  do  not  wish  to  say  much  about  men,  but  there  is  one  point  I  want  to  make,  for 
it  involves  a  principle. 

That  the  Republican  candidate  is  a  fair  representative  of  the  intelligence  and 
patriotism  of  his  party  I  do  not  doubt;  but  neither  will  it  be  denied  that  the  sole 
reason  why  he  and  not  any  one  of  five  hundred  other  gentlemen  is  to-day  the  candi 
date  of  the  party  is  due  to  his  negative  rather  than  his  positive  qualities.  The  only 
lesson  which  can  be  derived  from  the  elevation  of  this  particular  man  to  the  Presi 
dency  is  that  the  lightning  of  Nominating  Conventions  sometimes  strikes  where  it 
seems  least  likely  to. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  nomination  of  Tildenwas  forced  on  the  Democratic  Con 
vention  by  the  fact  that  he  had  identified  his  name  with  reform.  His  election  will  be 
a  declaration  to  every  aspiring  man  that  the  road  to  the  highest  honor  is  to  battle 
with  corruption  and  destroy  abuses. 

Fellow-citizens,  if  you  really  want  reform  you  must  pay  the  price  for  it.  And 
that  price  is  that  you  honor  and  reward  reformers.  Against  the  gold  of  the  public 
plunderers,  against  their  power  of  making  combinations,  you  must  set  the  certainty 
that,  by  your  votes,  you  will  support  and  reward  whoever,  resisting  their  wiles,  sets 
himself  against  them. 

Now,  fellow-citizens,  by  the  candidacy  of  these  two  men  the  question  is  fairly 
presented  to  you,  "Do  you  really  want  reformers  in  office  ?"  The  Republican  party 
managers  thought  you  did  not,  and,  ignoring  gentlemen  who,  in  the  Republican 
party,  represented  that  idea,  they  nominated  Hayes.  The  Democratic  party  managers 


[13] 

thought  you  did,  and  they  have  nominated  the  man,  of  all  they  had  to  choose  from, 
who  had,  as  a  reformer,  achieved  most  distinction.  It  is  for  you  to  say  who  was 
right. 

The  election  of  Tilden  will  say  to  all  future  political  conventions  that  the 
strongest  man  they  can  put  up  is  the  man  most  identified  with  reform. 

The  election  of  Hayes  will  say  that  a  record  as  a  reformer  is  no  element  of 
strength.  And  when  the  corrupt  element  in  the  Republican  party  or  the  corrupt 
element  in  the  Democratic  party  again  make  a  fight  against  a  man  who  has  shown 
himself  disposed  to  stop  Aheir  stealing,  they  will  point  to  this  election  to  prove  that 
reform  gets  no  votes,  and  that  the  reformer  may  be  safely  shoved  out  of  the  way, 
since  any  one  of  whom  the  people  never  heard  in  the  character  of  a  reformer,  is  as 
available  as  he. 

Fellow-citizens  who  want  reform,  are  you  so  ignorant  of  the  workings  of  poli 
tics,  so  ignorant  of  human  nature,  as  to  suppose  that,  under  such  circumstances,  you 
will  be  likely  in  future  to  get  any  reformers  to  vote  for  ? 

What  may  be  Hoped  from   a  Democratic  Success. 

Now,  I  do  not  mean  to  tell  you  that  the  mere  success  of  the  Democratic  party  at 
this  election  will  at  once  sweep  away  all  corruption  and  re-establish  prosperity.  It 
would  be  childish  to  expect  that.  When  we  find  that  we  have  been"  traveling  the 
wrong  road,  the  resolve  to  retrace  our  steps  is  only  the  beginning  of  a  slow  and  pain 
ful  return,  the  more  slow  and  painful  if  our  road  has  been  down  hill.  But  this  a 
Democratic  success  will  mean — a  stoppage  of  the  nation  in  its  career  towards  demor 
alization,  the  beginning  of  reiorm.  To  expect  absolute  wisdom,  perfect  purity  from 
the  Democratic  party,  would  be  as  hopeless  as  to  expect  it  from  any  other  party. 
Corruption  is  a  moral  disease,  just  as  small-pox  or  the  cholera  are  physical  diseases; 
and  when  it  becomes  generally  disseminated  in  a  community,  to  expect  it  to  show  it 
self  in  one  party  and  spare  another,  would  be  as  rational  as  to  expect  the  cholera  to 
seize  only  Unitarians,  or  the  small-pox  to  attack  none  but  Catholics. 

This  much  we  may,  in  the  event  of  a  Democratic  success,  certainly  expect:  The 
abandonment  of  that  source  of  corruption,  demoralization  and  impoverishment,  the 
Protective  system,  a  large  reduction  of  taxation  and  expenditures,  a  considerable 
simplification  of  government,  and  ^the  divorce,  to  a  very  great  extent,  of  private 
special  interests  from  public  affairs. 

Only  a  beginning,  perhaps;  but  still  a  beginning  which  leads  to  further  steps. 
For  just  in  proportion  as  you  take  out  of  politics  the  money  influence,  do  you  make 
it  possible  for  the  best  brain  and  conscience  to  step  to  the  front,  instead  of  the  pur 
chasing  and  purchasable  element.  Just  as  you  reduce  the  number  of  officials  do  you 
bring  them  under  the  eye  of  the  people ;  just  as  you  simplify  the  functions  of  govern 
ment  do  you  enable  the  popular  judgment  to  make  itself  felt  in  public  affairs. 

And  although  I  consider  men  as  of  infinitely  less  concern  than  principles,  the 
character  of  the  man  whom  the  Democratic  party  present  at  this  election  cannot  but  be 
regarded  as  the  best  earnest  and  happiest  augury  of  what  it  will  do,  if  intrusted  with 
power. 

Samuel  J.  Tilden  is  a  Democrat  worthy  to  be  presented  for  the  suffrages  of  all 
who  hold  to  the  ideas  of  Jefferson.  Growing  up  in  the  last  generation;  when  our 
polity — its  scope  and  its  limitations,  its  strength  and  its  weaknesses,  were  far  more 
profoundly  and  generally  studied  than  they  have  been  amid  the  distractions  of 
sectional  strife  which  have  beset  this  generation,  he  was  nurtured  in  the  Democracy 
of  Jackson,  and  even  in  his  youth  was  a  man  of  mark  in  that  school  of  patriotic 
and  thoughtful  politicians  who  safely  steered  our  republicanism  through  so  many 
of  its  earlier  dangers. 

That  he  has  the  brains  to  apply  Democratic  principles  to  the  government  of  the 
Republic,  more  in  need  of  them  than  ever  before,  we  know.  That  he  has  the  will, 
his  fighting  of  corruption  in  his  own  State  and  own  party  shows. 

Should  he  be  elected,  I  believe  that  posterity  will  not  blush  to  recognize  his 
name  in  the  line  with  our  earlier  Presidents,  and  that  his  inauguration  will  mark  an 
other  political  epoch  like  that  marked  by  what  was  long  known  as  the  Civil  Revolu 
tion  of  1800,  when,  under  the  lead  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  the  Democratic  spirit  of  the 
American  people  overthrew  in  its  first  insiduous  advances  the  same  policy  which  is 
now  making  the  corruption  of  our  Government  a  by-word  among  the  nations  and  im 
poverishing  the  many  to  place  colossal  fortunes  in  the  hands  of  a  few. 


[14] 

The  Premonitions  of  Decay. 

Surely  there  are  enough  indications  to  him  who  will  heed  them  that  this  work  of  re 
form  cannot  be  long  delayed .  Stand  still  we  cannot,  for  nothing  in  the  universe  stands 
still.  Either  we  must  begin  to  retrace  our  steps  or  we  must  go  from  bad  to  worse. 
Every  step  downward  will  lessen  the  power  and  increase  the  difficulty  .of  return. 
Toleration  of  corruption  means  not  merely  the  intrenchment  of  corruption,  but  the 
enervation  of  public  conscience;  the  obliteration  in  the  public  mind  of  the  distinc 
tion  between  right  and  wrong.  The  impoverishment  of  labor  means  the  destruction 
of  that  personal  independence  of  the  people  in  which  alone  tiie  foundations  of  popular 
government  can  rest  with  safety.  The  aggregation  of  capital  means  the  creation  of  an 
aristocracy  all  the  more  dangerous  because  untitled,  and  all  the  more  unscrupulous 
because  not  hereditary.  It  is  an  ominuus  thing  that  we  have  begun  to  look  without 
surprise  upon  notoriously  corrupt  men  clothed  with  the  honors  and  wielding  the 
power  of  high  office.  It  is  an  ominous  thing  that  upon  the  very  buildings  designed 
to  commemorate  the  first  Centennial  of  a  nation  whose  chiefest  glory  it  was  that  every 
boot-black  could  have  a  turkey  in  his  pot,  thousands  of  men  should  be  anxious  to 
get  work  at  seventy-five  cents  a  day,  and  that  in  a  depreciated  currency.  It  is  an 
ominous  thing  that  in  this  Centennial  year,  States  that  a  century  ago  were  covered  by 
the  primeval  forest  should  be  holding  Conventions  to  consider  the  "tramp  nuisance," 
— the  sure  sympton  of  that  leprosy  of  nations,  chronic  pauperism. 

Men  who  have  yet  to  pass  the  summer  solstice  of  life  will  remember,  when  they 
were  boys  with  what  contemptuous  pity  they  were  taught  to  regard  the  effete  mon 
archies  of  the  Old  World.  Dare  they  teach  to  their  own  boys  in  this  Centennial 
year  the  lessons  which  they  learned  with  every  returning  national  anniversary? 
Can  we  scoff  at  royalty  when  the  bribe-taker  has  been  tracked  to  the  very  door  of  the 
White  House?  Can  we  ridicule  hereditary  legislators  when  our  own  Senators  sit  in 
purchased  seats?  Can  we  deride  coats-of-arms  when  the  shield  of  the  nation  is  used 
by  the  nation's  representative  to  advertise  a  common  swindle,  and  the  eagle  of  the 
republic  cut  into  bait  with  which  to  gull  the  people  to  whom  he  is  accredited?  Does 
the  law  lord  of  England  look  so  ridiculous  in  his  wig  and  gown  when  our  highest 
law  officer  stands  accused  of  stealing  the  funds  with  which  he  is  entrusted?  Dare  we 
prate  of  the  luxuries  of  courts  when  our  soldiers  on  the  frontier  are  robbed  of  their 
paltry  pay  to  robe  in  shimmering  satin  the  wife  of  an  American  Secretary  of  War? 
Can  we  brag  of  the  blessings  of  making  our  own  laws  when  a  single  corporation 
pays  a  million  dollars  to  get  a  bill  passed  by  Congress,  and  a  member  of  a  State 
Legislature  moves  that  if  a  railroad  magnate  has  no  further  business  with  it,  this 
house  do  now  adjourn?  or  boast  of  the  virtues  of  the  ballot  when  great  cities  are 
notoriously  ruled  by  the  scum  of  their  populace,  and  government  employes  are 
marched  up  to  the  polls  in  line  and  given  a  pasteboard  ticket  to  vote?  Can  we  look 
with  mingled  horror  and  contempt  upon  the  French  18th  Brumaire  and  2d  of  Decem 
ber,  when  we  have  heard  the  hall  of  an  American  Legislature  echo  to  the  tramp  of  armed 
men?  Can  we  talk  so  flippantly  of  the  pauper  labor  of  Europe  when  our  roads  are 
crowded  with  men  looking  vainly  for  work,  and  public  soup-houses  are  opened  every 
winter  in  our  great  cities? 

All  this  means  the  gradual  approach  of  a  state  of  things  in  which  Republican 
government  is  no  longer  possible ;  in  which,  though  its  forms  may  be  preserved,  as 
forms  are  always  preserved,  republican  government  will  have  to  be  abandoned,  and 
the  best  interests  of  society  may  be  anxious  to  exchange  the  empty  privilege  of  pok 
ing  pieces  of  paper  in  a  box,  for  the  security  of  property  and  the  guarantee  of  order. 
Democratic  Republicanism  is  like  some  of  the  gases,  innoxious  when  pure,  but  an 
agent  of  terrible  destruction  when  adulterated. 

The  Remedy  yet  in  our  Hands. 

But  these  things  indicate  evils  as  yet  entirely  within  our  own  power.  It  is  in  no 
fools'  paradise  where  all  things  are  provided  that  the  Creator  has  placed  us;  but  a 
world  in  which,  if  we  will  but  use  the  reason  he  has  given,  we  may  make  all  things 
bend  to  our  service.  There  is  no  law  that  necessarily  associates  deep  poverty  with 
great  wealth,  political  corruption  with  material  prosperity,  and  internal  weaken- 
ness  with  external  greatness.  But  there  is  a  law  by  virtue  of  which  things  good  in 
themselves  tend  to  be  become  evil  if  not  properly  restrained  and  directed.  There 
is  a  law  by  virtue  of  which  we  can  never  safely  abandon  present  effort  in  the 
belief  that  a  past  generation  has  done  all  things  needful — a  law  to  which  Washington 
directed  our  attention,  in  the  maxim,  "Eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of  liberty." 


[15] 

It  is  niy  firm  and  profound  conviction — a  conviction  supported  by  every  axiom  of 
political  science  and  reinforced  by  every  page  of  our  history,  that  the  Democratic 
principle,  carried  out  in  its  integrity  and  expanded  as  it  is  capable  of  expansion,  will 
not  only  solve  all  the  evils  of  which  we  now  complain,  but  the  new  difficulties  that 
time  is  sure  to  bring.  But  of  this  each  of  you  have  the  same  right;  each  of  you  the 
same  opportunities  of  judging  as  I. 

Judge  for  yourselves.  Ask  not  what  this  man  says  or  that  mnn  says;  consider 
not  who  is  on  this  side  or  who  on  that.  Vote  as  though  your  vote  was  the  cast 
ing  one.  How  you  vote  no  one  has  a  right  to  ask.  That  is  a  matter  between  you 
and  your  own  conscience.  But  what  the  nation  has  a  right  to  ask  of  you;  what  is 
the  first  duty  of  citizenship,  is  that  you  give  the  question  presented  in  this  election 
your  best  thought.  Commonplace  as  such  an  election  as  this  may  seem,  yet  viewed 
as  the  struggle  of  two  great  policies  of  government,  it  is  impossible  to  overesti 
mate  its  importance.  The  question  presented  to  you  is  not  an  abstract  one;  it  is  not  a 
sentimental  one.  It  relates  directly  and  immediately  to  the  daily  life  of  the  individual 
It  stretches  far  out  into  the  future.  It  appeals  to  every  business  man  as  a  question  of 
profits,  to  every  working  man  as  a  question  of  wages.  It  involves  the  molding  of  the 
character  and  the  shaping  of  the  destinies  of  a  nation  which  is  to  be  the  grandest 
power  of  the  world,  and  must  be  the  great  example  or  the  great  warning  of  the 
Twentieth  century. 

The  influence  of  government  upon  national  character  is  as  far-reaching  as  it  is 
unobtrusive.  It  resembles  the  action  of  those  silent  proces*es  of  nature  which  do 
not  force  themselves  upon  our  attention,  but  in  which  long-continued  observation 
recognizes  the  world-builders  yet  at  their  work.  It  may  seem  to  make  small  differ 
ence  in  the  every-day  life  of  the  individual,  even  when  the  most  pernicious  policy  is 
adopted  as  the  rule  of  the  State,  but  what  we  know  of  the  history  of  the  world  is  little 
else  than  the  record  of  how  this  cause  has  transmuted  races  of  conquerors  into  races 
of  slaves,  wealth  into  poverty,  learning  into  ignorance,  art  into  barbarism,  the 
divine  spirit  of  progress  into  brutish  apathy. 

Here  we  stand,  a  new  nation  on  a  fresh  continent,  endowed  as  never  a  new 
nation  was  endowed  before — with  all  that  has  been  slowly  gained  by  the  best  of  the 
race  through  thousands  of  years  of  effort  and  mistake,  and  struggle  and  sacrifice; 
free  sharers  in  all  that  is  valuable  in  the  heritage  of  our  elder  brothers,  exempt  from 
all  the  conditions  that  cripple  and  bind  them.  What  will  we  do  with  the  talent 
that  has  besn  intrusted  to  us  ?  Wrap  it  in  a  napkin  and  bury  it  in  the  earth,  or  put 
it  out  to  increase.  Merely  make  a  new  Europe ;  or  carry  forward  the  promise  of  pro 
gressive  humanity  to  full  bud  and  glorious  bloom?  Great  we  must  be.  In~the 
coming  century  whose  shadows  are  even  now  beginning  to  steal  over  us,  this  nation 
must  occupy  to  the  rest  of  the  world  a  position  such  as  has  not  been  held  by  any 
nation  since  imperial  Kome  perished  of  the  concentration  of  capital  and  political 
corruption.  The  centre  of  power,  art,  refinement,  literature  and  wealth  must  pass  to 
this  continent.  But  shall  there  also  pass  over  here  the  centre  of  that  volcanic  force 
which  shot  up  a  premonitory  admonition  in  the  flames  of  burning  Paris ;  of  th $t  bar 
barism  which  made  Macaulay  point  to  the  shadow  of  palaces,  and  museums,  and  col 
leges  and  libraries  of  great  cities  as  the  new  wilds  from  which  might  some  day  emerge 
for  the  overthrow  of  modern  civilization  Vandals  more  destructive  than  marched  under 
Genseric  and  Huns  more  fierce  than  followed  Attilla  ?  Shall  our  power  be  exercised 
by  a  few  for  selfish  ends,  or  be  wielded  by  the  people  for  the  people  ?  Shall  our  cul 
ture  be  confined  to  a  class,  or  be  the  common  heritage  of  all?  Shall  wealth  be 
dammed  up,  here  making  pestilential  marshes  and  there  a  desert,  or  flow  in  its  natu 
ral  courses  giving  to  each  his  fair,  full  earnings?  These  are  the  questions  which  we 
must  settle  in  these  elections  of  ours. 

A    Recapitulation. 

Let  me  recapitulate : 

The  question  involved  in  this  election  is  not  as  between  two  men;  it  is  not  as 
between  two  parties.  It  is  between  two  great  policies  of  government,  and  your  vote, 
or  even  your  refusal  to  vote,  must  be  its  answer.  Between  the  policy  of  Alexander 
Hamilton  and  the  policy  of  Thomas  Jefferson  you  are  called  upon  to  decide.  You 
have  tried  the  one.  You  see  its  results  in  ruined  commerce,  prostrated  industry,  and 
an  epidemic  of  corruption  that  has  disgraced  the  highest  places  and  is  fast  eating 
downward  to  poison  the  daily  life  of  the  masses.  You  see  it  in  the  differentiation  of 
the  people  into  the  very  rich  and  the  hopelessly  poor.  Will  you  continue  it,  or  will 
you  try  the  other? 


[16] 

Be  not  deceived!  You  might  as  well  charge  the  bullet  or  the  knife  with  being  the 
cause  of  the  death  of  a  murdered  man,  as  to  think  that  all  the  things  of  which  you 
complain  result  from  the  accident  of  having  had  bad  men  in  office.  What  can  any 
change  of  men  avail  so  long  as  the  policy,  which  is  the  primary  cause  of  these  evils, 
is  unchanged  ? 

The  great  problem  of  Republican  Government  is  yet  to  be  solved  ! 
Its  crucial  trial  is  not  on  fields  of  battle,  but  iii  peaceful  struggles  such  as 
this.  If  you  elect  to  continue  a  governmental  policy  which  has  for  its  end  and  aim 
the  building  up  of  that  aristocracy  of  capital  on  which  De  Tocqueville,  forty  years 
ago,  warned  us  to  keep  our  eyes  anxiously  fixed,  then  the  bounds  of  our  destiny  may 
be  seen  in  the  past.  Do  not  fear  that  any  monarchy  in  name  will  ever  be  established 
here.  We  were  done  with  monarchs  in  George  III.  After  the  expulsion  of  the 
Tarquins  no  one  ever  arose  in  Borne  to  call  himself  King.  But  as  in  Home,  under 
the  simple  name  of  Imperator,  which  at  first  had  no  more  significance  that  the  title 
of  General  now,  a  master  came  to  rule  as  the  King's  never  dared  to  rule — so 
with  us.  Concentrated  wealth,  if  present  tendencies  continue,  will  in  some  insid 
ious  way  bind  us  with  bonds  we  cannot  break,  and  so  enervate  the  people  that,  in  the 
dread  of  anarchy,  they  will  be  content  with  the  loss  of  liberty. 

The  genius  of  Democracy  points  to  the  future.  She  sees  in  it  possibilities  greater 
than  any  yet  realized— ^ssibilities  only  shadowed  forth  to  dreamer  or  martyr  as 
gleams  of  a  Golden  Age,  or  visions  of  the  City  of  God.  A  nation  too  great  to  need 
armies;  too  proud  to  do  injustice;  to  powerful  to  fear  it.  A  nation  whose  simple 
government  shall  merely  prevent  the  strong  from  oppressing  the  weak  and  hold  the 
equal  scales  of  justice.  A  nation  where  trade  shall  be  free  from  barrier  or  restraint, 
and  industry  unhampered  by  law ;  where  the  ox  that  treadeth  out  the  corn  shall  not 
be  muzzled;  nor  the  producers  of  wealth  want  amid  abundance.  A  nation  that  can 
spare  the  toil  of  women  and  children;  that  needs  no  alms-houses  or  soup  societies; 
where  even  the  day  laborer  may  have  leisure  and  refinement  and  independance; 
when  something  better  than  wealth,  shall  be  looked  on  as  the  chief  good  and  highest 
honor.  A  nation  that  has  come  fully  out  the  night  of  barbarism,  and  shines  in  the 
full  light  of  Christian  civilization;  a  nation  where  liberty  means  the  perfect  freedom 
of  each  to  develop  all  that  is  best  in  his  character  without  interfering  with  the  equal 
rights  of  others. 

Is  it  only  a  dream  ?  Perhaps  it  is.  But  things  which  we  now  enjoy  as  freely  as 
the  air  around  us,  were  but  dreams  when  men  died  for  them.  It  is  only  by  look 
ing  at  the  ideal  that  we  can  appreciate  the  spirit  of  the  hero;  the  devotion  of  the 
martyr;  the  enthusiasm  of  poet; — the  preciousness  of  the  heirloom  we  have  received 
from  the  past;  of  the  legacy  we  may  leave  to  the  future. 


After  the  burst  of  applause  which  followed  the  conclusion  of  Mr.  George's 
remarks  had  subsided,  he  was,  on  motion,  unanimously  requested  to  furnish  th 
Club  his  speech  for  publication  in  pamphlet  form. 


*.   Print.  605  Clay  St.,  S   K. 


